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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769948">My Dearest Ani,</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticzelink/pseuds/domesticzelink'>domesticzelink</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Grief/Mourning, If you lose your soulmate you lose your "other half", Self-Hatred, Soulmate Penpals AU, Soulmates are real in this universe and have to do with the force, Unreliable Narrator, can you get some darth therapy or is it too late for that as well, vader wants to be world's okayest dad but he's just world's loneliest dad instead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:55:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticzelink/pseuds/domesticzelink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For Day 28 of Star Wars Soulmate Month: Soulmate Penpals with an unreasonably depressing twist.</p><p>--</p><p>Darth Vader returns to the tomb of his late wife with suspicion that something was calling out to him the last time he visited, and finds their soulmate love letters that he lost a long time ago. </p><p>For the first time in 20 years, he reads his wife's words again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Wars Soulmate Month 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Dearest Ani,</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I BROKE EVERY BONE IN MY BODY TO GET THIS OUT IN TIME AND I NEED PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP</p><p>aka, enjoy! this turned out to be my first fic ever on ao3 so funny how that turned out</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cold.</p><p><br/>His soul felt cold, just like the connecting seams of prosthetics to remaining skin, or the frigid air forced into his lungs every time his suit’s machinery decided he needed to take his next breath while occupying a frosty planet.</p><p> </p><p>He had felt the moment her flames flickered and died. In stark contrast to the security he always felt waking up to her soul’s warm presence embracing his own and telling him she was safe, the day he awoke alone in the galaxy was the day his soul became as chilled as the dead man inside the suit.</p><p> </p><p>As the years droned on, he only grew more frigid in the way he conducted himself around others and his duties, and in the way he physically felt. In every step deeper into the bottomless pit of the dark side, he went further away from what he knew, who he was, and what he had done.</p><p> </p><p>Away from Padmé.</p><p> </p><p>It became easy to excuse his actions and following consequences when differentiating between the endless frost of his lonely soul and the feeling of guilt and regret became impossible.</p><p> </p><p>Or so he told himself. Since neither guilt or regret attribute anything to power in the dark side of the force, they were frivolous and unnecessary. They should be exterminated from his mind.</p><p> </p><p>For the last 20 years, Darth Vader has remained a notoriously ruthless killer, one who doesn't flinch or halt his conquest for things as insignificant as personal feelings or morals. There is no room for sentimentalities about the past in the rapidly changing, competitive future of a Sith.</p><p> </p><p>Even so, and to contradict it all, he’s still walking down the wilderness paths of Naboo today. They’re paths he’s travelled before, memorized distinctly just from the experiences they accompanied, even if unsavory.</p><p> </p><p>There had been a chain of irksome interruptions last he was here in the form of "Amidalans", a delusional army of Naboo rebels that truly thought they could defeat him out of everyone in his life who had tried.</p><p> </p><p>Even with the distractions, he knew something unusual was left behind at the location he’s heading to. It was a homing beacon of the force, radiating a crackling energy that practically screamed in his skull <em> you're missing something. </em></p><p> </p><p>At the time of his first visit, it had been ignored in his haste to leave. But now with so much of his life being ripped from the roots by new discoveries and unveiled truths all connecting in some way to Padmé and his son, he couldn't stay away for long.</p><p> </p><p>The Sith feels out of place in this beautiful paradise. The luscious green plains, and the endless colors that he cannot define through his red lenses make him feel alienated and vile. He has not felt in place anywhere in the galaxy for all the years spent enslaved under the emperor, but now is the first time he’s ever felt like an intruder. An intruder on a planet that threw their best at him and failed miserably, the planet where his beloved Padmé was laid down to rest.</p><p> </p><p>It was easy removing stubborn lifeforms from his path. The fight is something he knows, something that he can slide into mindlessly and go on autopilot. He can brush it off as just being a heinous monster with a thirst for blood without further complication of it and people would believe that. <em> Darth Vader </em> would believe that.</p><p> </p><p>It’s different when there’s no battle to be fought, the opposition is already crushed, and the only thing driving him is selfish desires. </p><p> </p><p>There’s no excuses to be made to prove he’s nothing more than something dark and miserable, keeping him withheld from judgement purely because no one expects anything less than the worst.</p><p> </p><p>He has no real mission or objective this time either, just raw sentiment and those biting emotions at the back of his mind that he swears up and down he does not feel. It’s unusual to do something for his own interests, but something about Padmé and <em> his son </em> tends to get him bending rules he never would without those motivations, his fear of the punishments chaining him down.</p><p> </p><p>As always, he’s led around by his heart like a fool.</p><p> </p><p>The sun reflects off his black armor and makes him uncomfortable as he progresses through the world, shining down like some made-up spotlight in his mind mocking him for being here, calling him all the hateful things he truly believes about himself. It keeps the focus on him, so that he can be shamed by the rest of the Naboo citizens.</p><p> </p><p>But discomfort is the norm, and he’s heard far worse come from his master’s mouth regarding him than anything his own mind can conjure in an attempt to deter his choices. </p><p> </p><p>There was a small window between the rebels’ next predicted move and when he was needed last, so he took it. The second Death Star was making subpar progress to completion, but since he was not required for its creation he slipped away before anyone noticed.</p><p> </p><p>Vader finally reaches the end of the path leading to stepping stones. At the bottom of them lies a mausoleum, the former Queen of Naboo forever frozen in time as a stone statue standing between two columns of the structure.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Vader resealed the tomb last time, but someone else had gone and added extra reinforced locks to deter further visitors. It's annoying to require extra effort at worst, since the latches give way easily enough under the pressure of the force, its presence slipping through all the lock mechanisms and rendering them useless.</p><p> </p><p>He’ll reseal it a second time after, because he doesn’t trust anyone to enter this place. Granted he doesn’t trust himself either, there’s something he needs to know.</p><p> </p><p>In his last visit here he had been on a quest for truth, that he eventually found at a price: knowing his wife was golden hearted enough to still believe in him on her dying breath.<br/><br/><em> There is still good in him. </em></p><p> </p><p>The statement had grabbed him by the throat and cut off his oxygen. It rang in his ears and entered conflict with a recent memory, the one of heavily wounding their own son in pursuit of pleasing his master.</p><p> </p><p>She must have been just as disillusioned as he had become, in her own end, to have believed there was anything left to salvage.</p><p> </p><p>Darth Vader enters the tomb of the lost half of his soul, led by the same pull he’d felt last time he was here. It was familiar, like a forcebond’s directional guidance that always led him to the ones he held close. This time there was nothing to distract him from the visit, so he could investigate as he pleased.</p><p> </p><p>The mausoleum itself is small, a minimal boxed in space with the coffin in the middle of it. Beyond it is two overlooked display cases, and a locked chest in the middle of them.</p><p> </p><p>He makes his move for them, but stops short at the coffin. Glancing down, he observes that the roof of it has been fixed back into place from when he disturbed it to gain medical records with the help of ZED-6-7. Something also notable is some wilted, dry flowers in bouquets at the base. Those are new, and it settles a strange feeling in his stomach. </p><p> </p><p>Resting a hand on the coffin’s surface just over the engraved face of the queen, he stalls. </p><p> </p><p>He recalls doing the exact same movement to the genuine living, breathing thing. Even without a real hand to feel it, the stone is cold beneath his prosthetic gloved fingertips. The one who rests beneath is no longer alight with life, but he relives it just for a moment by rubbing his thumb over the surface of the stone carving’s cheek.</p><p> </p><p>Vader’s mechanical breathing fills the otherwise silent room, and he forces himself to move on after several minutes pass. A rare moment of weakness, that for once he does not reprimand himself for.</p><p> </p><p>Reaching the glass display pedestals and chest, he tries not to think too hard on the contents within the cases on each side of his objective. One contains the necklace Anakin gave her back when he was just a child, and the other holds her wedding ring, both of which hold more history for him than he can carry.</p><p> </p><p>The ghost of where his own ring used to hide under the cybernetic hand’s glove burns at the sight of its lost counterpart, so he focuses on the target instead.</p><p> </p><p>The aforementioned target is a chest made of Naboo’s strongest steel and an advanced lock, but it matters not. With a forceful click, it springs open and reveals its guts without further pause.</p><p> </p><p>A golden illumination floods the room, like a miniature sun freed from its cage, and Vader stumbles back a step from the surge of intense emotions that suddenly overwhelms him.</p><p> </p><p>Within the case sits a sizable collection of letters dipped in golden pigmentation next to matching letters in blue.</p><p> </p><p>The gilded letters themselves are the source of the glow, words scrawled out along each one in elegant handwriting. The blue letters beside them are dim and weathered with time, the writing partially unreadable in many places.</p><p> </p><p>However, out of all of the noteworthy characteristics of the letters, the <em> warmth </em> the golden parchments radiate has him scrambling brainlessly to grab a handful of them and hold them to his chest the moment he recovers from the shock.</p><p> </p><p>It had been over 20 years since he last felt it: the presence of <em> Padmé </em>’s life force and her love, the two being nearly interchangeable by how easily she loved everyone and everything, making  her entire life about kindness and spreading her adoration across the galaxy in spoken word and actions.</p><p> </p><p>She had so much to offer, but the force took her from everyone. Took her from <em> him </em>.</p><p> </p><p>He almost balls his hands into fists, but stops himself when he hears the paper crumple under his metallic grip. Much gentler, he coaxes himself into moving the letters from where they were pressed closest to his heart, and closes his eyes. Vader takes as deep of a stabilizing breath as possible, knowing his limit before his ruined lungs will cause him to cough and wheeze.</p><p> </p><p>Opening his eyes, he begins to read.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> — My dearest Ani, </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> This letter may arrive to you in the middle of the next siege, but you have to promise me you won’t read it in battle like last time. Let Rex hold onto it for you, so he can keep it nice and safe and you won’t get your big head knocked out again in another ambush. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> This letter will, however, reach you with a hint at something I’m excited to tell you in person. Something wonderful has happened, and even if I’m nervous for what may happen next, I cannot contain my joy. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> A new beginning is near, Ani. I can feel it, like I can feel you reaching back to me in our bond as I write this. Something big is going to happen, and I think this war will finally end. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Maybe I’m naive to be so hopeful during some of the darkest days of the modern galaxy, but it’s easier to believe in the good when I’m imagining our future together. Only good can come from our union. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Imagine it. Being truthful about our marriage after this war, freed from our responsibilities and only indulging in the finer things in life, like relaxing evenings to ourselves without fear of discovery and shopping sprees for things we don’t even need at the Naboo marketplaces. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I know that when I agreed to this I also agreed to the secrecy, but I still long for the day I can walk hand in hand with you and announce proudly how much I care for you to everyone around me. </em>
</p><p> </p><p><em> I should stop rambling now, since Typho is giving me </em> <em> the </em> <em> look and getting some rest should make him happy. </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I love you, Ani. Please be careful, and try not to do anything too reckless. Tell Rex I said hi, as well. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Yours, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Padmé ♡ —  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>His heart is beating faster than it has in years. Even in front of his enraged master, he was always able to bite back the emotions that threatened to rise like bile and spill from his mouth in pleas for forgiveness, and stand his ground.</p><p> </p><p>But faced with his ultimate failure residing in the material form of their mutually shared soulmate connection letters, he finds himself collapsing onto his knees with a heavy <em> thunk </em> against concrete.</p><p> </p><p>Vader hungers for the words no matter how much it hurts. Pain is <em> easy </em>, and he urgently needs them to sink into his mind with anchorage nothing can break or take away from him. </p><p> </p><p>He was forbidden attachments under the tutelage of the Jedi, and later forbidden absolutely anything of personal value under his emperor, but <em> damn it all </em> these were made for him. Whatever force phenomenon that links together soulmates made it possible for Padmé to reserve this <em> one thing </em> in the galaxy solely for him, and he’s not letting go.</p><p> </p><p>Delicately cradled by hands built to harm, the letters eliminate the shadows of the closed in space. What he’s holding doesn’t even scratch the surface of the abundance of love letters still stacked in the chest above his head, but tackling the rest wasn’t even considered at the moment.<br/><br/>He shifts the back letter to the front and continues to read. He took seven in all down to the floor with him, each one completed with a perfectly drawn heart at the end to drive the dagger deeper into his chest. <br/><br/>A few of them are just responses to something Anakin had said, from the nights when they would catch each other mutually available from responsibilities and would write back and forth until one would fall asleep with a half-finished letter lying beside them. It was like a couple of lovesick teenagers, he had thought fondly at one point in time about the situation.</p><p> </p><p>It’s tolerable to just read a time capsule of their past of loving banter and discussion of a happier time, a salve on the emotional war being waged within his thoughts. </p><p> </p><p><em> I can do this. </em> He thinks to himself with a vaguely recovering mental state, always soothed by her words and the warmth in the palms of his hands. He can pretend he’s holding her hands instead if he distances himself enough from the situation, too. </p><p> </p><p>But in one of the final two letters, he meets his match. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> — My dearest Ani, </em>
</p><p> </p><p><em> I have arrived at the lodging location for my visit to Alderaan. With all the senate disruption lately, I was advised to wait here for a week or two until things settle down again. </em> <em> <br/></em> <em> <br/></em> <em> And before you ask: yes, it is perfectly safe. My Diplomatic Services are with me too, along with Typho. </em> <em> <br/></em> <em> <br/></em> <em> But I must say, this planet reminds me so much of Naboo. I woke up this morning expecting to hear the Pelikki squall outside my waterside window, and even if I didn’t, some of the birds look so similar to them I’ve had to double take more than once. </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> It’s a sweet little cottage by the lakes similar to the one we stayed in years ago, just on a smaller scale. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You would love it here. It has mountain ranges that go far beyond what I can see, and I know how much you love your hiking adventures into the unknown of a green planet. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> What would you think if we got a home on Naboo similarly to this one? Secluded and beautiful, perfect for… well, possibilities in the future. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>There it was again. She had been hinting around for months to him about starting a family and settling down, but he’d been blinded by responsibility to the Republic, the Jedi, and the war when all along his true allegiance was to his wife.</p><p> </p><p>She had her own responsibilities of course, and she did them masterfully and without complaint for almost her whole life.</p><p> </p><p>But he knew her better than her façade to the public, and he knew that when her brilliant mind was sharp and keeping perfect pace with a war torn galaxy and a twisted senate, her heart was ragged and caving in with a timer attached. She was tired, and wanted a new start just to be human and <em> live </em>.</p><p> </p><p>Anakin wanted that for her, too. Part of why he fought so relentlessly in the Clone War was to give them an opening to slip away when it was all over. </p><p> </p><p>Darth Vader, however, took that away. He had ruined everything she stood for in selfish pursuit of his own wants and needs. The senate was dismantled, Alderaan was <em> entirely destroyed </em>, countless innocent planets were in shambles, and he killed her loyal followers.</p><p> </p><p>He thought he was doing it all for her, when it was the polar opposite.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Vader drops six letters to the floor leaving one unfinished, and can’t help but feel he didn’t deserve to read them in the first place. These were for Anakin, not the sith who just picked them up and sullied them with his touch.</p><p> </p><p>He was too stupid to realize he <em> had </em> everything he could ever want or need already in his hands. No number of worlds conquered could ever surmount to cradling his wife’s face and realizing she was the galaxy he was trying to protect from people just like the one he has become.</p><p> </p><p>The dagger in his heart twists and rips through the other side of the blackened muscle, and he feels nothing but guilt and regret. It’s like frostbite, infesting his body and fueling a frigid, sinister rage. </p><p> </p><p>He ruined not just his own life, but Padmé and the entire galaxy’s too. And for what? The woman he loved was gone, the proof of it right behind him in a coffin, the remains of her dreams residing in these pages.</p><p> </p><p>The air pressure around Vader shifts, growing heavy with the force. The tomb walls crack into lightning streak patterns, the glass display cases shattering. Getting to his feet, the final letter slips from his fingers and drifts to the floor.</p><p> </p><p>A choked roar rips through the vocoder in his mask, and he turns on his heel to storm from the tomb. He doesn’t deserve to be here, or to keep any of these notes. His childish habits have led him to invading and damaging the resting place of the very person he’s mourned for years on end, and this is already going against anything the emperor could ever want him to look into. When Palpatine inevitably feels the vague hint of <em> Anakin </em> in the force, that small fraction of him will be snuffed out in an instant. </p><p> </p><p>He’s frantic to escape, claustrophobia closing in on him with all his mistakes taking their shot at him without mercy.</p><p> </p><p>Everything comes to a stop when Vader steps on a golden letter on his way out. He visibly twitches, a wave of bizarre discomfort worming its way through his body, sprouting from his chest.</p><p> </p><p>His face feels hot under the helmet, his eyes and cheeks damp with the intensity of his remaining anger.</p><p> </p><p>Shifting his blurred gaze down to the letter crushed under his boot, his anger mellows out in tandem with the sharpened edges of the force around him, dissipating to nothing almost immediately.</p><p> </p><p>He cautiously picks up the letter and shifts his eyes to the coffin, making sure he didn’t ruin it in his fit.</p><p> </p><p>It was one of the only things left subconsciously untouched, along with the letters themselves. So how did this one end up at the exit?</p><p> </p><p>He blankly stares at the parchment for a long moment, too deep in contemplation to read anything on the page. </p><p> </p><p>But it’s enough of a pause for him to fully realize what he’s done, and he knows he can’t leave this place in ruin without driving himself mad and flying a shuttle all the way back just to fix it again in less than a day.</p><p> </p><p>Sighing, he turns back around and lifts a hand to the force. Far calmer than before, he commands all the broken glass and fallen letters to float into the air and part ways. The glass goes outside, while the letters neatly join the stack already in the box. The steel chest closes as he turns away again, and he walks out before he can do anything else. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t glance at the coffin again on his way out, or the eternally peaceful face on top. Vader can’t look at Padmé herself again, not when he cannot change to be the man she believed he could be. </p><p> </p><p>Soon, the empire will launch an attack to crush the rebellion once and for all, and he will spearhead the operation as he always does for any insurgency or traitors.</p><p> </p><p>His son is leading the enemy, and he will have to either kill him or turn him into a sith, because that is where Luke’s destiny lies just like his own. There is no escape from the dark side when you run the lineage the Skywalkers do, because wielding such intense power on your own has consequences.</p><p> </p><p>You are doomed to grow drunk with it and be lured to do dark deeds, and it’s impossible to deny once you grow addicted. Soon, the new hope will fall just like Anakin had.</p><p> </p><p>Vader will admit that he hopes he can persuade Luke. Together, they could defeat the Emperor and rule together as father and son. His expectations of this outcome aren’t exactly high, given Luke’s determination to reject his father in any way he can, with him even going so far as to deny they’re even related, but the mere possibility is enough to get him through his toughest days as an old puppet with broken strings “leading” an army through yet another war.</p><p> </p><p>Turning to close the vault door again, a flicker of movement in his vision is not at all what he expected considering everything inside the tomb should be <em> dead </em>. Defensive, he reaches for his lightsaber.</p><p> </p><p>Except, whatever moved was not alive in any way science could confirm. Drifting down and perching on one of his shoes is a soulmate letter, folded crookedly from how he’d stepped on it earlier.</p><p> </p><p>Vader furrows his singed brows beneath the mask. He knows he put this letter back with the rest earlier.</p><p> </p><p>He leans down to pluck it off the ground once again. Perhaps he is being ignorant disregarding it, because the moment it touches his hands, he feels this nagging sensation in the force that he’s missing something once again.</p><p> </p><p>Vader wants nothing more than to leave this place and never return, but he can’t deny his curiosity for what the force truly has in store for him. Something like this doesn’t happen by accident, and his faith in the force hasn’t changed.</p><p> </p><p>Smoothing the paper back into its original place from its creasings with his fingers, he steels himself and reads one final time.</p><p> </p><p>— <em> My Dearest Ani, </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You can't blame yourself for Ahsoka's decision, just as much as you can't blame her for making it. Sometimes paths diverge, but if you keep them in your mind they won't ever be far. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Vader feels immediate dread at the contents. This was a topic he always avoided thinking too much about even when Ahsoka was still around.</p><p> </p><p>He had run himself in circles about it for years even when attempting to avoid it. Intrusive thoughts lead him to asking: why did Ahsoka's path lead her to a confrontation with him, rather than a destiny beside him? Everyone who shared a strong connection with Anakin abandoned him to his fate, gave up on him even when they promised they wouldn't.</p><p> </p><p>Obi-wan swore to raise him and train him no matter how challenging it would be, and he<em> knows </em> it had been. Yet the moment he had slipped into the inevitable fall, he was not caught, he was pushed over. Obi-wan had never believed in him, no matter how convincing his faux-sweet words were.</p><p> </p><p>Ahsoka said she wouldn’t leave him, and then she wasn’t there when he needed her most. Yes she was wronged by the council, but she also admitted to knowing he held similar feelings about the order, and acknowledged his belief in her until the end. So why did she close him out? He lost all contact with her until she decided he was useful again, and he felt like their time together had not even mattered to her from the start. </p><p> </p><p>It reminded him too much of losing contact with his mother, and only confirmed his fear that he could lose everyone he cared about at any time and he would have been helpless to stop it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> And you can't assume you would be a bad father only because Ahsoka made a different choice than one you personally would have chosen for her. Children are their own people, and they learn to make their own destiny.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You have to trust in her to make the right one, Ani. You know she wouldn’t hurt you on purpose either, you’ve both been through too much together to believe that. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The note continued, somehow answering and soothing Vader’s thoughts without knowing they needed to be. </p><p> </p><p>When Ahsoka challenged him, he recalls considering her offer far longer than he’d normally allow himself the option of betrayal. </p><p> </p><p>Fully grown and standing in front of him had been the girl he raised to the best of his abilities, from a whiny teenager to a strong woman that was able to spread her wings and leave without her religion and without him, carrying the skills he’d taught her as her weapons instead of her Jedi lightsabers. </p><p> </p><p>Even if she held new lightsabers by the time they fought, they had adapted and changed just like she had to the new galaxy and the new ideals she had adopted along with it.</p><p> </p><p>When they clashed, he remembered all the Jedi he had taken prisoner after defeating to turn into Inquisitors, and how he would not be doing it that time. If she would not join him, he would put her out of her misery before she could reach a fate worse than death. A twisted thought, but he had imagined it as a kindness in the moment.</p><p> </p><p>This brings him to a memory of Luke, much like all of his reminiscing of Ahsoka does. Luke leapt to his own assumed death rather than join him as his apprentice, proving his loyalty to the light and his friends. He had changed and adapted to fight for what he believed in, even if it meant dying for it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> And Ani, you are a family man. You care so deeply about people that the Jedi scold you for it. Doesn’t that prove that you’d do just fine giving love and care to a child? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I know our child will be just as sweet, brave, and kind as you. All you have to do is support them and keep them safe to the best of your ability.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You might not always be able to stay with them, but they will always love you for your effort to contribute to their life, even when it’s time for them to leave and pursue what sparks their own fire, to find themselves and know confidently what they want to be. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>That was the thing he was missing, wasn’t it? Being on opposite sides of everyone he ever loved had ruined his perception of loving someone and being loved back.</p><p> </p><p>He firmly believed that after everything he has done, any perceived positivity or love towards him was a manipulative lie just like the council used to tell him, or that his master regularly slips into orders, so he never knows what is real or what is just another ruse to get him killed and replaced with a fully functional, younger apprentice.</p><p> </p><p>When Obi-wan had told him he could turn back on Mustafar, he didn’t believe him. When Ahsoka told him she wouldn’t leave him this time, he didn’t believe her either.</p><p> </p><p>But since Padmé was of course right, he now saw there was a void next to him where family should be, and he was the one who made it. Anakin at his core was a man who operated on his bonds and translated them to being his strength, but Vader worked alone and primarily drew power from concentrated rage and spite.</p><p> </p><p>The revelation leaves him somewhat shattered, thinking back to all those times he <em> could </em> have made connections or made the right choice but chose against it on flimsy reasoning built on fear of what would happen if he did. </p><p> </p><p>He made <em> himself </em> Vader, and he cannot blame anyone else but himself.</p><p> </p><p>He claimed to have been abandoned by everyone close to him, but had he? They were his family, but in the end he had prioritized power over them all blindly, fooled by those lies he always hated so much.</p><p> </p><p><em> And if you mess up? There’s always time to make up for it. Never give up on yourself or the ones that believe in you. </em> </p><p> </p><p>The note read further, Padmé’s words wise and relevant long past her years. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You’re a good man at heart, regardless of what your mind tells you. Anger is natural, and I know any child of ours will probably have a bit of a temper, too. They’ll understand like I do. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> It’s not fair to beat yourself up over the things you can change with effort, Ani. Allow yourself to be human, but know you can always change your path and aid others in their own as well.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> It’ll all work out in the end, I promise. It’s not like you to give up, you know. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Time to make up for it. If she knew the context now, would she still say that? </p><p> </p><p>Given her endless optimism and big heart, the answer is probably yes. It is true that if he put in the effort, he could possibly be better off than he is now or even free, but the other variable results heavily outweigh the positive, and usually end in Vader becoming a crispy addition to the trash compactor in the second Death Star.</p><p> </p><p>Staging an escape had never been plausible alone, but before he found Luke, he had also never had a reason to. Once he lost Padmé, there was nothing left for him to live for outside of the purge and his orders.</p><p> </p><p>If it’s too late for him, can he truly honor her beliefs and wishes in him? All other chances to do the right thing are long gone. All but one.</p><p> </p><p>Luke is the answer of course, but it’s more complicated than that.</p><p> </p><p>What if he forgot about the empire, the emperor? Ran away with his son and honored Padmé’s wishes by both protecting their child and proving there could be good left in him?</p><p> </p><p>The problem is that all of that can’t happen in harmony with one another. In order for the Rebellion to succeed along with Luke staying safe from the dark side’s clutches, Vader must not get involved or interfere with Luke’s path. It’s not possible to save both himself and Luke without majorly jeopardizing the Rebellion, and deep down he knows that.</p><p> </p><p>The Emperor definitely knows he visited Naboo today from the intense emotions he unconsciously channeled through the force, and the same thing could happen if Vader joined Luke. It’s too risky, and he’s not taking a single chance to endanger his son especially at the hands of the emperor. Never again.</p><p> </p><p>He’s fine with it, too. Not happy, but accepting. The ending of his story was never intended to be happy, but at least he now knows that the force is calling for <em> Anakin </em> to do the right thing at long last. Maybe it had told him before, but he was too delusioned and sunk in self-suffering deprecation and doubt to see it.</p><p> </p><p>Padmé’s letters shone light on what he couldn’t see on his own, and it’s times like this that he always wishes he could turn to her like he used to and ask for advice.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe in some alternate universe, they did raise their child on Naboo in a waterside cottage. Anakin would mess up sometimes and be comforted by his wife, gaining motivation to try again through her belief in him. </p><p> </p><p>He would fail, but he’d also succeed twice as much. His son would grow up in both of their images, and he’d be so proud of him until the day he was privileged enough to die of old age, rather than whatever’s in store for him in his own timeline.</p><p> </p><p>That alternate reality is what he hopes Luke can have in his future, as he continues to live on when Vader is gone, and after he conquers the one thing Vader could not: letting go. </p><p> </p><p>He will believe in Luke just as much as Padmé had believed in him, and their son will bring about the new dawn his mother had always wanted.</p><p> </p><p>Vader runs a hand over the letter sentimentally, and <em> smiles </em> beneath the mask. Then, he lets go. Gingerly, he guides it back through the force to the chest across the tomb, and closes the lid.</p><p> </p><p>A pause follows while he works up the courage to speak. But after collecting himself and his words, he expresses himself openly to the empty tomb in hopes the one on the other end of their silenced bond will hear him.</p><p> </p><p>“You always did see the good in everyone, even the ones who didn’t deserve it.” Vader starts, standing awkwardly in the frame of the door with his eyes on the coffin. “But I learned a long time ago not to argue with you. I will do my best to follow your wishes.”<br/><br/>“... I may see you soon. I do not know for sure, but I’ll move forward believing it. I — thank you, Padmé.” Darth Vader turns away from the tomb, raising his hand to seal it with the force again.</p><p><br/>As the door slowly slides closed, <em> Anakin </em> says, “You were right about Luke being a good person. He reminds me of you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for sticking with the fic til the end!! Working on this meant a whole lot to me, but not as much as the people who supported me through it do! Thank you to: Egg, My ArchRival, Mika, Jamie, and my girlfriend K!! You're all the best and I love you!!</p><p>This event was a blast to do, so thank you Jamie for organizing it! I hope everyone enjoyed Star Wars Soulmate Month!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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